Issued at a press conference held, Wednesday, September 28th at 11:00 am at Kingdom Life Church, No. 25 Chesapeake Road, Nassau, Bahamas.
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Re: Acquittal of The Russian Strip Dancers and Operators of The Butterfly Club
    On Wednesday, September 21st, six Russian strip dancers, their Russian manager and 6 staff members of The Butterfly Club/Bahamas Cabaret Ltd, all appeared before magistrate Renee McKay on charges ranging from indecent behaviour to abetting indecent behaviour.  Magistrate McKay ruled that the prosecution did not prove a case against them and acquitted them all.
    We believe the ruling as handed down by Magistrate Renee McKay in favour of the strip dancers and the operators of The Butterfly Club/Bahamas Cabaret Ltd reveals a serious weakness in our prosecutorial system in the magistrates’ courts. Further, we believe this raises grave concerns for the future impact upon the legal recourse Christians and other morally minded Bahamians may have in combating the increasing influx of morally degrading activities in the Bahamas.  Hence, we issue this statement of concern today.
    We also are saddened and gravely offended by the remarks made by the Defense Attorney, Mr. Wayne Munroe, as they amount to announcing “open season” in The Bahamas for prostitution and other commercial forms of lewd sexual activities. We are strongly convinced that the issues raised by this ruling, and the way in which the Defense Attorney publicized it, will have serious negative impact upon the morals of our youth and the Bahamian community if not addressed immediately.  This press conference is our first step in seeking to address those issues.
    We are being assisted by lawyers in analyzing the actual ruling of Magistrate McKay and therefore do not wish to comment specifically about the details of the case at this time.  However, since some will no doubt misread the outcome of the case and believe that Mr. Munroe successfully argued that prostitution and other commercial forms of lewd sexual activities done in private are legal in The Bahamas, we hasten to say that the magistrate made no such ruling. Magistrate McKay's ruling only related to the charges before her court and, according to her, the prosecution simply did not prove the charges laid.
    In our view, it was a waste of resources by the police to do surveillance and raid the club, and a further waste of the court’s time to have last week's outcome, which we believe was largely due to the sad and unacceptable practice of allowing police officers who are not lawyers to prosecute cases.  These police officers are pitted against professional lawyers who clearly have an unfair advantage because of their years of legal training.  Therefore, in the interest of justice and fair play, we will be calling on the Attorney General and The Bahamas Bar Council to work together to discontinue this practice.
    We are particularly concerned with the proliferation of clubs, events and activities that are built around commercial sexual entertainment, all of which are first cousins of prostitution in all its allied forms as they only further the degradation and exploitation of women and young girls and encourage violence and abuse towards them.  These activities even encourage human trafficking of women and children for the horrific “sex industry”.  Towards this end, we will be calling on the government and its various agencies like the Licensing Authority and The Department of immigration, requesting that they cease facilitating these operations and activities with government licenses and permits and other tokens of legitimacy.  These activities only harm our nation and nothing is to be lost by banning them.
    While we regret the outcome of the court case, we commend the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Paul Farquharson and the hardworking men of the Royal Bahamas Police Force for doing their job in raiding The Butterfly Club/Bahamas Cabaret Ltd, and we pledge our support for their continued efforts to eradictae these activities where they might be found in The Bahamas.
    It is our understanding that the fine for breaching the terms of a liquor license is $80.  This is ridiculous and unacceptable.  We obviously do not take breaches seriously when the fine is set so low that a child could pay it by saving his allowance for two or three weeks.  In this regard we will be calling upon the government to assist the police in their noble work by amending existing laws and passing new laws with prohibitive fines and prison sentences for those who breach them.
    Ladies and gentlemen, our analysis of this matter of The Butterfly Club and their commercial sexual activities has lead us to the considered conclusion that we are seeing the beginning of the mirror occurrence of what has sadly been allowed to happen with illegal gambling and the proliferation of “Web Shops/Cafes” that are now openly defying our laws against Bahamians gambling.  We believe this sad, arrogant violation of the law together with the word “butterfly” are instructive for us.  As you know, a butterfly used to be a caterpillar, constrained in to cocoon.  However, over time, it struggled and struggled to free itself from the cocoon and eventually it got out, never to return to that place of restriction.
    In conclusion, we would mention that we recognize that our calling for the government to take concrete action against these activities will no doubt raise the old question about whether governments can legislate morality.  The stark reality is yes they can and yes they do because every time governments pass laws they set moral standards.  So the more appropriate question is this: “Whose morality will be the standard reflected in laws set by the government?”  Clearly, in a democracy, it should be the moral standards of the majority of voters, not special interest minorities or a few influential investors and business people.   We are convinced that in spite of the degree to which our national moral standards have fallen, the majority in our country are morally minded people who do not support the further pollution of our nation’s “moral water table” by operations and activities like those of The Butterfly Club/Bahamas Cabaret Ltd.
    While we speak as pastors, we believe that it is incumbent upon the government all decent minded, law abiding citizens in all spheres of society to actively do all they can to resist the efforts of a few persons who are driven by financial greed and who lack a moral compass and any regard for the dignity of women and sexuality to continue to further erode the moral fabric of our nation.

For more information, please contact Pastor Cedric Moss:

393-8262 (office)
327-1444 (home)
357-8611 (cell)
E-mail: cmoss@kingdom-life.org